Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Usage Questions --Hanging Out

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 10/01/2003 10:38 AM, "Joe Nolan" <jnolan [at] adobe.com> wrote:

> HANGING OUT
> Newbies here fantasize a lot about pleasant times "hanging out" in or
> around the CH during non-meal times. This almost never happens in FROG,
> even if someone announces that they are providing
> tea/bagels/newspapers/etc. Hard to get a critical mass.
> - Does it happen in your CH?

A jigsaw puzzle has worked wonders when we have had room to put it up and
leave it up. One or two people sit down to work and others wander by and sit
down.

Television. We have satellite service that many do not have in their homes.
Again, one person is watching and others wander in.

Childcare. We have one or two children who have been cared for by a nanny in
the commonhouse so people play with the children. Some parents have started
bringing young children to the kids rooms to play after dinner at home. Play
with kids, however, actually works better when people can have relationships
with the kids independent of the parents. Parents and kids set up a closed,
often loaded relationship that it is hard for others to break into.

Laundry has definitely not done it. I remember stories on the list about
other cohousing communities where people hang out over clothes lines and
such but here it seems to result in piles and piles of laundry in various
states of undone in the laundry room with no people in sight.

Comfortable chairs in conversation nooks. Some of us are in favor of
breaking up our sea of tables into many areas so this happens even more. An
isolated table where a few can sit comfortably instead of a sea of tables.

In no instance do I see a "critical mass" hanging out. It is rather more
just one or two or three. Or even more like a changing cluster. If you walk
through the commonhouse it looks empty but if you sit down, you see lots of
people coming and going and they stop to talk. There will be two or three at
at time. They move on and more come along. If I have an idea I want to test
out on people, I send it to email and then go sit in the commonhouse and
stop people as they go by to ask them what they think. It works very well.

I think our commonhouses are used much more than we think they are -- it
just isn't like college where everyone would prefer to hang out. Also in a
college of 5,000 students, you can always find someone in the lounge or the
commons, but cohousing has far fewer people. Ratio of people to space is not
comparable.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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